Atharva-Veda Samhita/Book VI/Hymn 89

89. To win affection.

[Atharvan.—mantroktadāivatam.* ānuṣṭubham.]

This hymn also, like the preceding, is wanting in Pāipp. Kāuç. (36. 10-11) applies it in a women's rite, for winning affection, addressing the head and ear, or wearing the hair, of the person to be affected. *⌊The Anukr. text is confused here; but the Berlin ms. seems to add manyuvināçanam.⌋

Translated: Weber, Ind. Stud. v. 242; Griffith, i. 293.

1. This head that is love's (? preṇí), virility given by Soma—by what is engendered out of that, do we pain (çocaya) thy heart.

Preṇí is as obscure to the comm. as to us; he paraphrases it by premaprāpaka 'that obtains (or causes to obtain) affection.' He takes vṛṣṇya as adj., treats pari prajātena in c as one word, and supplies to it snehaviçeṣeṣa. ⌊Whitney's O. combines tátas pári.⌋

2. We pain thy heart; we pain thy mind; as smoke the wind, close upon it (sadhryàñc), so let thy mind go after me.

The sign in our text denoting kampa in sadhryàñ should have been, for consistency's sake, 1 (as in SPP's text) and not 3; the mss., as usual, vary between 1 and 3 and nothing. The comm. reads sadhrim.

3. Unto me let Mitra-and-Varuṇa, unto me divine Sarasvatī, unto me let the middle of the earth, let both [its] ends fling (sam-as) thee.

The comm. renders samasyatām by saṁyojayatām.